There is increasing interest in the use of games to scaffold social skills training for autistic children and youth. However, there is no consensus on how to best approach their design, so that learning opportunities are maximised. This article presents a systematic scoping review of empirical studies that use games as social skills training for…

This paper examines how primary aged children with reading difficulties attend to, understand and act upon different types of feedback within a digital literacy game. A systematic and structured video analysis of twenty-six children's game play was carried out focussing on moments where children made an error and were followed by in-game feedback.…

Minecraft is a popular digital game-based learning (DGBL) tool used in learning environments around the world. With increasing emphasis on evidence-informed practice and policymaking in educational systems, this paper systematically reviews the evidence base behind the use of Minecraft in improving academic, cognitive, motivational-affective and…

This study sought to investigate whether there were performance differences between the children who engaged with the Ignite by Hatch™ educational gaming system using the English- or Spanish-language versions of the games. Differential item functioning methods (DIF) were employed to investigate these differences. Specifically, DIF analyses can…

Imagine producing curricula to teach a new language to an audience in a different country that has never had access to computers or the Internet. How will instructional designers and teachers communicate when worlds are so vastly different? Before reading, writing, or speaking, images and movement facilitate communication. This article describes a…

Families often face financial and geographical barriers to services for children with autism. The current study explored the effectiveness of a parent-supported adaptation of the computer game-based social skills program Secret Agent Society (SAS). Seventy child-parent dyads were randomized to SAS (n = 35) or a caregiver-supported cognitive skills…

This study examined children's learning when they played 12 digital math games to understand how design features promoted children's awareness of the affordances in the games, and how this contributed to their learning. Elementary-aged children (N=193) played three digital math games during 60-minute interviews. We collected quantitative (pre-post…

This study used CodeMonkey, an online learning platform through which elementary teachers can learn programming while playing games and experience how to integrate STEM into their courses. The study analyzed and examined their experiences using a qualitative research method. According to the research results, learning programming while playing…

The use of information communication technologies (ICT) in education brings up new possibilities of promoting learning and health experiences. In this sense, education contexts of the 21st century must consider these two areas of knowledge, especially their integration. This article presents learning practices developed with mobile devices and…

This article focuses on analog and digital game play and the challenges it poses to future teachers in an educational context. For that, a review of the literature on the subject was made, addressing the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. We refer to the game as a pedagogical resource, its relation to the teaching-learning process, and its role in…

Persistence has proven to be a great challenge in online learning environments. Gaming and interactivity have been suggested as essential features in reducing dropout and increasing persistence in online learning. Yet in interactive game-based learning environments, persistence in moving forward in the game may come at the expense of investing in…

iRead is an EU Project involving literacy games in Spanish, German, Greek, and English for L1 and L2 acquisition. Content is selected dynamically from a large database using linguistic rules based on the player profile. The teacher can view pupils' progress based on automated game sequences or assign games manually. This project strives to…

This study describes the use of a game-based writing environment (GWE) to increase textual cohesion in students' writing and improve their writing attitude. The participants were 113 third-grade students in Taiwan; the study was conducted over two semesters. A GWE was used for the experimental group (n = 56), and a conventional writing environment…

When learning to write Chinese characters, it is essential for students to learn and maintain the correct order of the strokes. Chinese teachers often use computer-supported drill and practice to develop students' ability to write in the correct order, but such devices are rarely designed to stimulate learners' memory-manipulation in cognitive…

This report discusses the potential of games to support learning, and what innovative game-based (or "gameful") learning and teaching practices can look like in a range of New Zealand school settings. Over 2 years, we undertook fieldwork in 14 schools, interviewed 21 teachers and more than 100 students ranging from Year 3 to Year 13. We…